By Jack Delosa
COMMON TRAITS
OF
GREAT
LEADERS
Unwritten, by Jack Delosa
is available for $29.99
from reinvent-tomorrow.com
T
he extent to which you
fulfil your vision is the
extent to which you
can mobilise other people
towards it. Those who are
able to achieve great
things are those who have
developed an ability to
touch the hearts and minds
of people everywhere. This
ability is called ‘leadership’
and its essence is greatly
misunderstood.
Any meaningful endeavour in life
is going to require you to be an
exceptional leader. Whether you want
to be a great parent, a great partner, a
great employee or a great entrepreneur,
how successful you are in that
endeavour will come down to how well
you are able to move people.
The problem with a lot of the existing
22
thinking around leadership is that it
doesn’t recognise the importance of
character. It speaks of tactics rather than
intention, and it speaks of behavioural
manoeuvres rather than personal
principles.
Character cannot be faked and
therefore leadership cannot be
artificially manufactured. If you are
approaching your people with the
intention of ‘maximising human capital
efficiency’, then you have already lost
the game.
Efficiency is, of course, important.
However, it is achieved through creating
an authentic culture that is centred
around a purpose, not through viewing
people as resources to be exploited.
Becoming a great leader is about
unlearning much of what we’ve been
taught about what it means to lead.
Leadership is about resonance. To what
degree are you able to resonate with the
people who look to you for guidance?
In this sense, leadership demands
authenticity and is strongest when your
leadership style and your behaviour
are a natural extension of who you are.
It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said,
‘Who you are speaks so loudly, I can’t
hear a word you’re saying.’ Sustained
leadership demands that you are the
person your people think you are.
I care for my people with all of my
heart. Nothing brings me more joy
than seeing the right people step into
the right environment and flourish. The
most rewarding part of my life to date
has been enabling people to become
somebody they hadn’t imagined. I
love to challenge people to do just
once what they previously considered
impossible and see how their entire life
changes forever as a result. Their selfimage, the way they view the world,
their confidence, their communication,
their relationships, their work – it all
transforms when somebody steps into
the best version of themselves.
This is what leaders do – they help
people completely reimagine who they
are and what is possible for them to
achieve. It is the essence of contribution:
to touch the lives of others in a way that
makes them more, in a way that makes
them shine.
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